


I Can't Cure You

by aftaeglow



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, One Shot, One-Sided Attraction, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:01:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22099912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aftaeglow/pseuds/aftaeglow
Summary: The Snow Ball is coming up. Mike is going with El and Will starts coughing up petals.
Relationships: Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55





	I Can't Cure You

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone this is my first ao3 fic! I hope you enjoy!

I broke out in a coughing fit in the middle of Mr. Clarke’s science class.

First, I felt my throat growing dry, almost like I had swallowed a whole bucket of sand. And then it tightened. It squeezed around itself, which I wouldn’t ever have been able imagine the feeling of. Mr. Clarke looked horrified, my classmates looked horrified. I excused myself from class and ran to the bathroom.

Inside a stall, I sat and held my head up in front of a toilet. The constriction was still in my throat like a snake around its prey. It was hard to breathe. My head was light. I was dizzy. Just before I felt like fainting, I coughed. I coughed up a singular purple petal.

_What the fuck? Where the hell did that come from?_ I thought maybe I had swallowed it somehow, but it was in perfect shape. Fresh off the flower, completely dry, and sweet smelling. _Where the hell could it have come from?_

“Will!” It was Dustin. “Will are you alright, man?”

“I think so? The coughing stopped.”

“You want me to take you to the nurse’s office?”

“Uh, I think I’m good. But look at this.” I showed him the petal. It glowed a faint yellow.

“Wait, I didn’t know you were allergic to pollen.”

“No dude. I coughed up this petal just now.”

Dustin looked confused. He looked like he didn’t believe me. I wouldn’t have believed me either, honestly.

“Dustin I swear.”

He didn’t respond, he just looked at me weird. I’m pretty sure he thought I was seeing things or something. But hell, I was confused as shit.

“Alright, man. You still wanna go to the nurse’s office?”

“No thanks. I think I’m fine.” I told him, but I wasn’t really sure.

The bell rang, and Dustin and I exited the bathroom. We were dismissed for the day, so I rode my bike home. I didn’t think Jonathan or my mom would believe me if I told them what had happened, even if I showed them the glowing purple petal. So instead, I kept it inside my backpack and tried not to think about it.

In the morning, Mike asked if I wanted to bike to school together. I liked Mike. He was my best friend. Sure I had Dustin and Lucas and Max and El, but Mike was my favorite by far, and I felt the most comfortable around him. You wouldn’t believe how many times I ditched doing my homework when he wanted to hangout, or how many hours I’d spend playing DnD with him. We just got along so well.

I told him I would bike with him.

Mike’s thick black hair looked pretty in the wind. His button up shirt flew a little bit above his stomach, and his freckles were easier to see in the sunlight. He was handsome.

_Eyes on the road, Will. You might get into an accident._

“So Will, have you decided who to take to the Snow Ball?” Mike asked.

Something pushed against my throat. “No.”

“Come on, Will! You can’t stay single forever.”

_Yeah, but I can’t force myself to like any of the stupid girls from school,_ I thought, but I’d never say that out loud.

“Are you taking El?”

“Duh. She’s my girlfriend.”

I felt the push against my throat again, but this time there was a pang. _I’m probably just jealous because Mike has a girlfriend and I don’t. But do I really want one?_

“Dude, you look so down.” Mike said. “I can help you get a girl if you want. I mean, if Dustin can get one so can you.”

“Hey! What’s wrong with Dustin?”

“No offense, but his girlfriend is out of his league.” Mike chuckled. I liked the sound of his laugh, I could listen to it all day. He was my best friend, after all. There were days where we laughed for hours, and I’d get distracted by his smile.

“Come on, man. She doesn’t even have to be your girlfriend, just a date.”

“I really don’t know about.” The push got stronger, almost like someone had been choking me, and the pang started to spread all the way up to my mouth. I started coughing, a little harder than before.

The only time I had ever felt a pain like this in the past was a year ago, when I got lost in the upside down and became a host for its specie. I was confined to a hospital bed. I didn’t even know that lab had a hospital. And I had to stay there while they burned me from the inside out. Unimaginable sensations gushed through my insides, a literal wildfire within my being. No, an extermination. But this, this was comparable to say the least.

I stopped pedaling, and so did Mike.

“Will are you alright?!”

_Cough._

And there it was. I turned away from Mike to make sure he didn’t see. Two purple petals, glowing with yellow, and attached at a stem. They smelled prettier this time, completely not what you’d expect from a petal that came out of someone’s throat.

“Yeah, I am.” _Holy shit. Another petal._ I pushed them into my pocket. “Let’s go?”

“Okay.” Mike said, and smiled. He pushed back his hair and tucked in his shirt.

_I’m starting to notice so many little things about him_.

The pang returned and stayed for the rest of the school day, and then followed me home in the afternoon. It hurt like a bitch, it hurt worse than getting my braces tightened, or that one time I scraped my knee trying to skate with Max. It would stay with me through the next four days, sometimes subsiding, but sometimes it would grow. I just had to start keeping track of when.

Math was the only subject where I didn’t have Mike with me. It just Max, Eleven (who I don’t really like, but I’m not sure why) and I in that class. And I noticed that I never had any flower vomiting problems out there. Perhaps it had to do with the fact I was concentrating real hard on my work rather than on other things, or maybe it was the fact that it was just the girls and I. Or maybe it was just a coincidence.

“How’d you do that, Will?” El asked me. She sat across from me next to Max.

“A squared plus B squared equals C squared.” I said, bluntly. I was never like this.

“Yeah I know, but we got different answers.” El said

“That’s because you mistook the hypotenuse for B.” I said.

“Damn, you’ve been studying.” Max added.

“Well, I’m not going out on dates every weekend, so I have time to.” I said meanly. I didn’t think the two girls were idiots, but it was silly they were hung up on their boyfriends more than anything. I didn’t have one—a significant other, not a boyfriend, no of course not.

“Wow, low blow coming from the most single person on Earth.” Max said.

What Max said was true, it didn’t bother me too much. In fact, I was the only person in the group who had never fallen in love or dated, as teenagers should. Mike and El were basically live porn if you stayed around long enough. The way El would touch his pretty hair and Mike would run his hands through hers, holding onto her face and not letting go, and the smile he’d make after they pulled away. His eyes really shined with love for her, they dazzled brighter than Dustin’s pearls.

Fuck, there it was again. The snake wrapping itself around me. I gasped for air, but got nothing. Second gasp, still nothing. My lungs felt like they had a block in them, preventing anything from coming in. The bottom part of the throat pushed against itself stronger than before, and the back was closing in. I saw the worry on Max and El’s faces. Genuine worry.

“Will? You ok?” El asked. She was in panic, distress, and in whatever feeling you get after coming back from the upside down by the looks of it. Max jumped from her seat and hit my back. It hurt like a bitch, I mean, Max is pretty strong.

I could feel it, it was coming up my throat. I put my hands to my mouth and coughed.

_Flowers again._

“Man, that was one hell of a cough.” Max said. They both sat at their seats again, and when they weren’t looking I examined my petals.

_There’s three of ‘em now._

I felt better now. I felt better after every flower cough. I felt clearer. But now, I didn’t feel much better. They pains from around my throat had completely disappeared, but the block in my lungs was still there. It covered out the bottom half of my lungs, and I couldn’t take a full breath.

I left class trying to breathe in more, but I couldn’t. I walked alone to my last class and passed Mike and Lucas. Lucas was dressed in a cool t-shirt and shorts, while Mike wore this stripped polo I had never seen before, and his shorts looked new too. His hair was different today, I was sure he gelled it more than usual, and his shoes were cleaner.

_Oh the things I… notice._

He, Mike, waved at me. I sheepishly waved back. Right in front of my art class was the poster for the Snow Ball, which was tomorrow night. And he was going with El.

I coughed again. There were four petals, but none of them were attached.

…

The ride home was a terrible one. Every few seconds I’d get the urge to produce lung petals. Every breath became shorter and shorter, and the petals were all different shades, none of them connecting to another.

I was angry. Why did I have to put up with this? What was happening to me? And why did I suddenly care so much that Mike and El were going to the Snow Ball together?

Maybe because Mike was my best friend and I loved him so much more than I trusted El. Hell, she only showed up after I went missing, and I haven’t known her as long as I’ve known Mike. She’s weird. I can’t trust her around Mike, the thing that’s most important to me.

One bloomed inside my chest, and I coughed my most painful one yet.

_Shit._ I thought. _I’m in love with Mike._

…

There he was, standing on the opposite end of the ballroom. The pink and green lights glowed ethereally on his face, and his blue polo suited him just right. His hair was curled just enough to make him look like the guys in magazines. He was perfect. He held a cup of something in his one hand, and El’s hand in the other.

I tried hard not to let another petal out as I walked toward Mike. Only now I noticed that Dustin, Lucas, and Max were all there too.

_I wanna dance with him_.

The world moved slowly around me, and I was moving slowly too. I saw Mike grab El by her waist and stare deeply into her eyes, pulling her away from the rest of our friends. He pulled her to the middle of the dance floor and put his other hand on her. Everything moved slower and slower in front of me, but I couldn’t look away. My eyes were glued to him and I couldn’t pull away even if I wanted to.

My breathing shortened. I couldn’t let anything into my lungs. My neck was being constricted by an invisible snake. I lost my balance and fell on my back, coughing up petal after petal after petal. Mike let go of El and ran to me, leading the rest of the crowd on the dance floor.

“Will!” He screamed.

“He’s puking petals,” some girl said

He put his hand under my neck. “The fuck?! Petals?!”

“Hanahaki!” Dustin said.

“How do I stop it?!” Mike said. He was crying.

  
  
“Whoever he’s in love with has to love him back,” said Dustin.

“What’s gonna happen if they don’t?” Max asked.

“I-I don’t know.”

“Will! Will can you hear me?!” I was losing air.

“M-Mike help,” I told him.

“I can’t,” he cried. “I can’t cure you.”

Mike didn’t know I was in love with _him._

I couldn’t hear anything after that.


End file.
